


The One That Got Away

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Christmas Party, Estrangement, F/M, dante is a dick, long-overdue conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22029469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: Once upon a time, Caitlin Snow went to senior prom with her best friend, Cisco Ramon, hoping they would be more than friends by the end of the night. That didn't happen.In the four and a half years since, they've drifted apart. But when she decides to go to the Ramons' annual Christmas party, Caitlin hopes that she might get her friend back again . . . or maybe the more she once wished for.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow
Comments: 15
Kudos: 30





	The One That Got Away

**Author's Note:**

> It's my annual Killervibe holiday fic everyone! Just a few days late, but like I keep telling myself, Christmas doesn't end until January 6th.

The night had turned cool and windy, and the arch over the door of the Elks Lodge was starting to droop as rain wetted the balloons and streamers.

Suddenly the door flew open and a girl stormed out, her long blue satin skirts swirling around her legs, struggling to hold on to her wrap, her purse, and her phone. A boy followed her, spiffy in a tuxedo but looking confused and dismayed. "What's going on? Where are you going? Did something happen?"

"I'm going home!" She shoved her phone back in her tiny purse and fought to get her filmy wrap around her shoulders as the rising wind snatched at it.

"But why?"

As she stormed down the sidewalk, one of her high heels caught in a crack, and she would have gone crashing to the cement if he hadn't caught her. "Whoa, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, leaning on him for a split second before she got her feet under her again, then pulling away. "I'm going home." 

"But why? What's wrong? We haven't even danced yet. C'mon. At least stay until the king and queen are crowned."

"I don't care about the damn king and queen. Neither of us ran and none of our friends did so I don't care!" 

"Well, okay, whatever." His hair, which had started the night carefully gelled into place, escaped and fell over his forehead. He pushed it back impatiently. "Please just come in and dance with me. Once, okay? Just once? Listen, they're playing - "

"I don't want to dance."

"Just once, that's all I'm asking."

"Stop bugging me! I've told you and told you, I don't want to dance! I want to go home."

His face hardened. "The limo's not coming back until ten. You gonna walk?"

"I called a taxi." 

His mouth fell open. "You what? Already?"

She swiped rain, and something that might not have been rain, off her cheeks. "I said I wanted to go home!"

"Fine, then I'll go with you."

"No," she snapped. "You stay here. Have fun."

"Oh my god! I don't wanna be at senior prom without my date!"

"Then go somewhere else!" she shouted back. "I want to go home and I want to be alone!"

He crossed his arms. "Well, I'm not going anywhere until your stupid taxi gets here. I'm not leaving you to stand alone in the rain."

A set of lights cut through the rainy night as a taxi pulled into the parking lot. She pointed. "There it is. You're free to go now."

Instead of turning around to go back inside, he stepped forward, taking her shoulders gently in his hands. "Caitlin. Hey. Look at me a moment, okay? What's wrong? You're upset. Did something happen?"

His hands were warm on her chilled arms, and his eyes were full of honest confusion. Her chin wobbled for a moment, then she firmed it up. "Nothing happened, Cisco. I just don't feel good and I want to go home."

He stared at her for a moment and then dropped his hands. "Okay. Fine. I'll see you at school, I guess."

"I guess," she echoed, and then the taxi beeped. She turned away and opened the back door, climbing inside. 

The taxi pulled out, leaving Cisco standing under the sagging balloon arch like a Prince Charming who hadn't found Cinderella's shoe - confused, unhappy, and hopeless.

* * *

_ Four Years Later _

"Caitlin!" her mother shouted up the stairs. "Are you ready?"

"Almost!" Caitlin yelled back. 

"We're going to be late!"

Caitlin rolled her eyes to the ceiling. It was a neighborhood holiday party, not the opera. She marched out to the landing and leaned over the railing. "Mom, go ahead to the party. I'm still working on my hair. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Without you?"

"It's fine! It's not like I'm going to get lost. They're three houses down."

"You should have started getting dressed earlier."

"I was doing flashcards and lost track of time," she lied. "Mom, I promise I'll be there."

Her mother glared up at her, narrow-eyed. "You've skipped it the last four years."

"Mom, I was  _ working -  _ "

"It's only right that you put in an appearance. I promised Paulina Ramon you were coming."

Had their neighbor turned around and told her son that, too? Caitlin pressed a hand to the jitters in her stomach. "Mom, I swear I'll be there soon. Look, I'm almost dressed."

Her mother frowned. "Are you wearing that?"

She felt her shoulders knot tight, and smoothed her hands down the champagne-colored sequined shift dress she'd put on. "Y-yes? What's wrong with it?"

Her mother frowned some more. "It's fine, I guess. Don't take too long. And when you get there, make sure to find the Ramons first. It's just good manners to - "

"Mom, I know how to behave in public. Go. I'll be along soon." Without waiting for a response, Caitlin turned on her heel and rushed back into her bedroom, already yanking at the zipper under her arm. Her mom was right. This dress was awful.

She dropped it on the carpet, kicking it away and staring at the dresses spread all over her bed. She picked one up, purple velvet with silver embroidery at the waist. With its long sleeves and high neckline, she'd rejected it as too prim, but it fit her like a glove, stopping well above the knee.

Too tight? Too short? After all, this was a neighborhood Christmas party. It would mostly be the neighbors she'd grown up with, a generation older than her, talking about their kids and grandkids. Maybe one or two of them would be there.

Besides Cisco.

She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed. "It's going to be fine," she muttered. "It's going to be just fine. Senior prom was four years ago." Four and a half if you wanted to get technical. "You're a college graduate, he's almost a college graduate, you're  _ adults." _

And she needed to act like an adult and apologize.

She swiveled and looked at herself in the full-length mirror on her wall. "Cisco," she said aloud to her reflection, as she had so many times since deciding to go to this party. "I'm very sorry about the way I acted at senior prom. It was immature and impulsive, and I hope that we can put it behind us and be friends."

She bit her lip. Maybe friends was asking too much.

She sat down on the edge of her bed and picked up a scrapbook lying open, half-covered by various rejected dresses. She'd gone through a brief scrapbooking obsession in high school and this was one of the first ones she'd made. 

She turned pages, looking at pictures of them. Pudding-smeared cheeks in the three-year-old room at preschool. Gap-toothed grins on the first day of kindergarten. Years of science fairs, both of them beaming with pride no matter who held the blue ribbon. Her eating cake at his First Communion party, him dancing wildly at her bat mitzvah. 

The last picture, pasted in here without any kind of border or decoration, had been taken on prom night.

They stood in her mom's living room, Cisco looking like James Bond in his tux, her glamorous in a shimmering ice-blue gown. There had been other shots with both of them facing forward, but her mom had accidentally snapped this one, where they were turned a little toward each other. He'd said something funny, she thought, and she'd been about to laugh. They both looked happy, and if you didn't know better, maybe a little in love.

Or at least, she did.

At eighteen, she'd thought she was being oh-so-subtle about her feelings for her best friend. At twenty, she'd been able to see the hearts beaming out of her eyes, not subtle at all. Now, at twenty-two, she could understand that Cisco might not have seen it either.

How he had felt, she still didn't know.

She shut the scrapbook with a sigh. It wasn't as if they'd stopped speaking altogether. But ever since that night, she'd seen him mainly online, only sporadically in person, and never with the intimacy of the fifteen years preceding it. Maybe their friendship, like their childhood, was long gone.

She'd never know unless she actually got her butt in gear and got to the party.

She snatched up a third dress, also velvet but in a deep cranberry, with long, loose, sheer sleeves and a swirling skirt about six inches longer than the purple dress. Before she could overthink it, she pulled it on and scrambled through the rest of her preparations before grabbing her tray of cookies from the kitchen and setting off for the party.

The weather channel kept predicting snow, but so far it hadn't materialized. The evening was chilly and drab, but dry, so she didn't have to pick her way down a damp, icy sidewalks the way she had the last time she'd been to this party. Of course, at that time, she'd had far less experience walking in heels.

The Ramon house was blazing with light, as usual. They always went all-out with lights and displays, this time of year. The party wasn't even the half of it. All their trees were wrapped in lights, a giant Santa ho-ho-ho'd from the roof, ornaments studded the hedge, and little candles in bags lined the front walk.

She felt her steps get slower as she approached the house, and she lectured herself. _Don't be a ninny, Caitlin. You're just going to a party. You've been to this same party for years. You're going to chat and smile and be cordial with people you've known all your life. So you might see Cisco there, so what? You've built him up into this bugaboo in your head. He's not a monster, he's just a person._

She nodded to herself, firmly. 

_ So . . . so march up to that front door and ring the bell. _

She stayed where she was, at the foot of the front steps.

_ You coward. _

A gust of wind whipped down the street, snatching at her hair and chilling her knees. She shivered, then climbed the steps, juggling the platter of cookies until she could manage to ring the doorbell. She pasted a bright smile on her face, ready to greet Mrs. or Mr. Ramon, or possibly Cisco's older brother.

The door whipped open and she felt her smile go rigid, because Cisco was on the other side.

"Hi," he said.

When they'd been kids, his outfit for the party had generally been a festive sweater and a pair of ironed slacks - his mom's choice, since he preferred to live in grungy jeans and t-shirts with spaceships, dinosaurs, or robots. As he got older, his day-to-day uniform had remained the same - not as many dinosaurs, a few more sarcastic slogans - and his outfit for the party had transformed into an ironed white shirt and tie. Still his mom’s choice. 

Tonight he wore a sport coat and a cheerfully patterned button-down, open at the throat. He'd grown his hair out long. It suited him amazingly well, given that he'd had a short, slicked-down haircut for their entire childhood. She found herself staring at the notch in the base of his neck. 

“Caitlin?” he said in a way that indicated it wasn’t the first time he’d called her name. 

She snapped out of it. “Hi. Cisco. Hi! Sorry. I was - I was trying to figure out what was on your shirt.”

He looked down at himself. "Oh, uh - mistletoe. Mom nixed all my other choices." He made a face.

"Spoilsport," she said.

"She might have had a point about the one with the actual blinking Christmas lights, but don't tell her I said so."

She found herself smiling. "My lips are sealed."

He grinned back at her. "Anyway. Hi. Happy Hanukkah."

"Merry Christmas." The wind whipped her hair again, and she shivered so hard the cookies rattled on their plate. "Um, could I come in?"

"Oh shit!" He stepped back, giving her the space to cross the threshold before shutting the door behind her. "Yes. Please, come in. Sorry. What a shitty host. Can I take your coat, or - ?"

"Actually, it would be easier if you took this." She handed him the plate and started unbuttoning her coat.

He peered at them through the plastic cover. "Damn, these look amazing. Where'd you get 'em?"

"I made them," she said, struggling briefly with her sleeve.

"What, you? You made them? With flour and sugar?"

"Yes, me. I made them. With all the ingredients."

He shifted the plate from side to side to check out the different designs. "These are, like, works of art! You brought all these just for my mama's party?"

"Oh, I've got at least three dozen more at home. I made a lot."

He grinned at her. "Used to be you'd burn water. You learn at that bakery job?"

She nodded and smoothed her hair down, hoping the wind hadn't completely wrecked the curls. "I don't work there anymore."

"I know, I went by the other day."

She felt her eyes widen. "You did?"

"Not in a stalker-y way," he said hastily. "Just dropping in to see what was up with the holiday specials, and I asked if you were around and they said you'd quit . . ." He trailed off. "That's not sounding very convincing, re: me not being a stalker."

"You've come in before and said hi. It's not a big deal." Although it had felt like a big deal to her. She'd once ruined an entire tray of pumpkin pies because his visit had rattled her so badly she'd forgotten to set the oven timer. Tina, the owner, had  _ not _ been happy with her.

"Yeah, well, anyway . . ." He trailed off again.

She shifted her coat in her arms. "So, should I put this on your parents' bed like always?"

"Yeah, it's just up the stairs and to the - well, you know where it is."

She smiled awkwardly and started up the stairs. 

She took a moment to breathe, in the darkened bedroom that smelled comfortably of his parents' cologne and perfume. Okay, okay. That had been awkward. And yet not. He was still Cisco. Older, taller, more solid. But his smile was the same, and his fashion sense, and his . . . his  _ Cisco-ness. _ That hadn't changed. Next time she saw him tonight, they would probably be just fine.

If she got a chance, she'd make her apology.  _And what then?_ she asked herself.

She didn't know.

On her way down the stairs, she paused at a family portrait, with everyone in matching Christmas sweaters. Getting it taken every November had been an annual source of complaining from Cisco for as long as she'd known him. The current iteration showed all the Ramons and a pretty young Asian woman with a sleek black bob, smiling as if she belonged there. Cisco's arm was around her waist.

"Oh," Caitlin said in a low voice.

She'd thought they'd broken up. At least, she hadn't seen Kamilla on his social media over the past year or so. But apparently they were back together, and serious enough that she turned up in his family's Christmas portrait.

For a moment Caitlin felt like she had the day after senior prom, curled up in her bed scrolling through everyone's social media, seeing Cisco and Kamilla dancing in the background of every shot.

She took a steadying breath, turned, and kept walking down the stairs.

The foyer was empty. She followed the sounds of chatting and laughter into the next room. A neighbor noticed her and said, "Caitlin, hello! So good to see you again. Look at you, all grown up!"

"Hi, Mrs. Trowbridge. How are you? How is Clarissa?" Mrs. Trowbridge's oldest daughter had babysat her when she was little, and Caitlin still had fond memories of the older girl's math games.

"Oh, she's good, she's good. Did your mother tell you she and her wife had a baby last month?" She whipped out her phone without waiting for an answer.

Trapped by the enthusiastic grandma, Caitlin nodded and smiled at the stream of pictures showing a sleeping baby that looked like a cross between a pitbull and Winston Churchill. When her mother caught sight of her across the room, she frowned and looked pointedly at Mrs. Ramon, chatting in a clump of people over by the Christmas tree. 

"He's really beautiful, Mrs. Trowbridge. But, um, I haven't said hello to the hosts yet, so . . ." She extricate herself, glad to be free of the baby pictures. Why did people think anyone was interested in babies? They literally all looked the same.

Well, probably not to their parents, but she had no interest in that just yet.

She said a couple more hellos but managed to make her way to her hosts without getting caught up in more grandchild discussions. She tapped Cisco's mom on the shoulder and smiled. "Hi, Mrs. Ramon."

"Caitlin!" Mrs. Ramon said, hugging her. "It's so good to see you."

"You too. I heard about your dad. I'm really sorry."

For a moment, her hostess's eyes looked watery. "Thank you, mija. He was very sick. He's in a better place now."

Caitlin smiled awkwardly and said hello to the rest of the clump, which included one of Cisco's aunts that always came to these parties and a couple more older neighbors. Mrs. Ramon stepped back and looked at her, smiling. "Look at you, so pretty. Dante, don't you think she's so pretty?" she asked her older son as he came up with cups of eggnog for the whole group.

He gave Caitlin a long, head-to-toe look and a slow smile. "I do. Hi, Caitlin. Merry Christmas. Or is that not PC? Am I supposed to say Happy Holidays?"

"It's fine," she said. "How are you, Dante?"

"I'm good, I'm good."

"He's got a  _ gig _ tomorrow," his fond mother said, patting his arm. "Tell her where you're playing."

Dante had been playing piano to more and more acclaim throughout their childhoods. But as Caitlin listened to him brag about the various Christmas parties that he'd been contracted to play at, she couldn't help but think this wasn't quite where the whole neighborhood had thought he'd be at twenty-five. She smiled and nodded anyway. 

"So how are you?" he said finally. "Graduated yet? Or are you like Cisco, a fifth-year senior?" He laughed.

Caitlin didn't. "Isn't he getting a combined bachelors' and master's? Those programs are pretty intense. If he's still on track to graduate in the spring, he must be doing really well."

"Oh, he is," Mrs. Ramon said, as Dante's smile wavered. "So, your mom said you graduated last spring. Three-point-nine! So smart. You always were, weren't you?"

Mrs. Hoffman, standing next to Caitlin, put in, "She says you're going on to med school?" She and her husband had the house on the corner, and they'd always given out toothbrushes at Halloween. 

"Yes, I'm studying for the MCATs right now."

"What kind of doctor are you going to be?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I'm leaning toward research."

"Oh, that sounds so dry! You would be such a good pediatrician. Or an obstetrician, maybe."

"They make good money," said Mr. Hoffman, wiping eggnog off his walrus mustache.

Caitlin kept her smile pasted on. "Those are definitely options, but I'm really interested in oncology research with an emphasis in genetics."

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Hoffman said. "Yes, I suppose . . . well, that's quite an ambition!"  


"Hey, Mama, there you are," Cisco said. "Did you see - oh, hi again!" 

"Hi," she said. Hadn't she promised herself it would be less awkward, the second time she saw him tonight? It was  _ not. _ She had lied to herself. 

He held out a plate. "Mama, did you see Caitlin brought cookies? There's a whole tray."

"Oh, how kind of you!"

"She made them herself," he said. "Iced them and everything."

"My goodness, that's a lot of work," Mrs. Hoffman said, biting off a corner of a white-and-silver iced star.

Caitlin flushed. "It's just - it's good stress relief. If I hadn't brought them, my mom and I would have had to eat them all, so - you know." She was very aware of Cisco, standing just across the way from her. 

"Not surprised you got to them first," Dante said to him, slinging an arm around his shoulders. "You better watch that sweet tooth, little brother, you're going to get fat."

Cisco shot him a dark look. "Pinche pendejo."

Their mom swatted his elbow. "Basta! You're being rude." She smiled at her guests. "Boys. Even when they're men, right?"

"Not that he looks like it with this hair," Dante said, rumpling Cisco's hair and laughing. "He looks like a girl. Doesn't he look like a girl, Caitlin?"

"I - he - he looks very nice," she said. It wasn't a lie. The shiny waves flattered his face and emphasized the breadth of his shoulders. 

Dante laughed again. "You're always so sweet."

Cisco ducked out from under his hand and smoothed his hair down. "Anyway, I wanted to make sure you saw the cookies, Mama. Hey, can I get anyone anything? Drinks?"

"I took care of it," Dante said.

"Actually, I don't have one," Caitlin said, stepping out of the circle a little. "In the kitchen?"

"Yeah, Pop is playing barman," he said, moving to go with her.

"I think she knows where the kitchen is," Dante said, but Cisco pretended not to hear him. 

"I do like your hair," Caitlin told him as they navigated the room.

"Yeah? My pop hates it."

"Well, you always wanted to let it grow out."

"I know, right, and he was like, 'as long as you're under my roof' blah blah." He grinned. 

"Are you? Under this roof."

"I've got a place by school with a buddy of mine."

"Oh, did he come tonight?"

"He was invited, but his fiancee's dad was having a party tonight, too. They might make it later."

_And Kamilla, is she here?_ Caitlin thought. She opened her mouth to say it, but someone caught Cisco's arm to ask him about the bathroom. Probably for the best, so she didn't make a complete fool of herself. She went on to the kitchen alone.

Cisco's dad made a big deal out of pretending he thought she was too young for the rum and Coke she requested - "I have hot chocolate, or virgin eggnog" - but finally gave her the drink with a grin. "I'm glad you came," he said. "Your mom promised you would, but we thought you might be busy with your studies."

"I'm glad I did too. It's nice to see everyone."

"Well, Cisco and Dante are happy there's someone their age here. Otherwise they have to talk to all the old fuddy-duddies." He winked. "Not too long until the next generation comes along though, eh?"

She smiled weakly, wondering what he was hinting at. Dante didn't have a steady girlfriend as far as she knew. And Kamilla had been in that picture.

How did you casually, breezily ask a man if his son had proposed to his girlfriend yet?

At that moment, a couple more people came in for eggnog - "And don't forget the rum, Tino!" - and he waved her off with a quick reminder not to miss the food laid out in the dining room. 

As if she needed it. The Ramons always put out a huge spread. She fixed herself a plate of cheese and nuts and chocolate, and studied her platter of cookies with satisfaction. They were about half-gone. She went out to mingle.

She fended off a lot more questions about her studies, her future plans, and her romantic life. "Oh, no," she said, with a fixed, genial smile. "Not seeing anyone. I'm really focused on getting into med school right now."

"Don't wait too long! You know women over thirty have babies with a lot more birth defects."

"Actually, while there is a small statistical increase, the incidence of birth defects isn't that much more after thirty or even forty."

Mrs. Harrington patted her shoulder. "But you don't want to be too tired to run around after them, do you?"

Caitlin ate a cube of cheese to stop herself from responding to that.

After several more similar conversations, she needed a breather more than anything else in the world. Every room on the first floor seemed to be filled with people and noise. She smiled and nodded her way through a few different groups of people before she noticed the door to the basement, cracked just a little bit.

For a moment, she wavered. The lights were off, the basement was dark. The days of the rec room being the kids' party were long over.

But she'd spent hours of her life in that room. Not just during this party, but every time she'd come over to hang out or study with Cisco. What would it hurt to take a few minutes now?

Before she could talk herself out of it, she opened the door and slipped through the opening. She left the light off so as not to attract any attention and clutched the railing as she picked her careful way down the carpeted stairs.

A faint electronic glow from the TV and various machines lit the room in shades of nostalgia. Her name was probably still in the memory banks of the pinball machine, and somewhere in the room there was a dent in the plaster from Cisco throwing a shoe at a spider. She smiled involuntarily. 

The old leather couch creaked and squeaked as she sank down into its collapsed depths. The cushions were lumpy and one of the arms was patched with duct tape, but if the Ramons had elected to replace this disreputable piece of furniture, she might have cried. 

Old, half-remembered conversations held in this rec room, as they studied or watched TV or played video games, replayed in her head. The biggest and smallest moments of their lives had all happened here, it seemed like.

* * *

_ I think I might like boys. _

_ You do? _

_ I think maybe. But girls too. Is that a thing? _

_ Um. I think so. _

_ Are you weirded out? Because if you're weirded out, I'm just kidding. _

_ No, I'm not weirded out. _

_ Oh, good. _

* * *

_ How is your dad? Did they figure out why he passed out? That was crazy, the ambulance and everything - _

_ He has cancer. _

_ Oh, shit. Oh my god. C'mere. It's going to be okay. He'll do like, chemo and stuff, right? _

_ No, it's bad. It's really bad. It's stage four, that's like the worst. He could - he could - _

_ Shhh. I gotcha. I'm here. _

* * *

_ Hey, why didn't you go to the homecoming dance? _

_ I didn't have a date. Nobody asked me. _

_ So? You could have come with me. _

_ Um, I don't think Brian would have liked that much. _

_ Oh my god, he would have been fine. We were in a group. There were others without dates. We all hung out and laughed and danced together. It wasn't a big deal. _

_ I just didn't want to be that loser girl without a date to a dance. Again.  _

_ Middle school was last year and you weren't even close to the only person without a date at the Winter Ball, anyway. Just because some dingus boys called you Hermione, it doesn't mean they're all dinguses. Plus, how stupid was that as an insult? Not only is Hermione the bomb, she was a hottie at the Yule Ball. _

_ Because she had Viktor Krum as a date. What if I never, ever get a date? For anything? What if I'm a loser reject sitting home the night of our senior prom? _

_ Um, first of all, no, impossible. Second of all, if nobody asks you, which again is impossible, you can always go with me. _

_ That's four years from now. What if you want to go with someone else?  _

_ I guess we'll figure that out. What do you say? If you don't have a date and I don't have a date, we'll go together? _

_ It's a deal. _

* * *

_ I'm so sick of him! _

_ Dante? _

_ It's like no matter what I do, he's doing something better. All As? Okay, but Dante is the youngest ever soloist at the concert! First place the science fair? Look at the trophy he won!  _

_ I'm sorry. If it helps, I think you're way cooler and nicer and smarter than him. _

_ You have to say that, you're my best friend. _

_ I'm your best friend because you're cool and nice and smart. _

* * *

_ Hey, so, prom, right? _

_ Hmmm? What? _

_ We're still going to prom, aren't we? I mean, did any guy ask you? _

_ No, not yet. What about you? _

_ Nope. All right. So, we're on? _

_ We're on. _

* * *

She wiped her eyes. All those years of friendship, and she'd acted like a complete child and ruined everything. Then she'd been too embarrassed and nervous to make the first move, or even respond very well when he did, and just like that, they'd drifted apart.

But that kind of thing happened, she told herself. Every time her life had changed - moving from elementary to middle school to high school, when her dad had died, when she'd started college - old friends just veered away. Like two peoples' paths could only run parallel for so long. It wasn't anybody's fault.

She'd just never thought it would happen with Cisco. 

The door at the top of the stairs opened and heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. Suddenly worried it might be Dante, she jumped up and prepared to act like she was just about to return to the party.

But it was Cisco who blinked at her as he hit the bottom of the stairs. "Whoa. What are you doing down here?"

"Just needed a breather." She smoothed her hands down her dress, nervously. Maybe now was the time for her apology. 

"Oh. You want me to go?"

"You're okay," she said, sitting back down.

He dropped down next to her. "So what were you escaping from? Or who?"

"All the people with opinions on my reproductive plans. If one more person asks me about babies, I'm going to shank them with a candy cane."

He looked at her like she was crazy. "Babies? Are you serious?"

She spread her hands in bafflement. "I'm not even dating anyone."

He shot her a quick, unreadable glance. She felt herself flush up to her hairline and hurried on. "I'm surprised they haven't said anything to you."

He covered his eyes with a groan. "Oh my god. No. No babies until I'm at least thirty, thank you, good night."

She laughed, and he grinned at her. She dropped her eyes and toyed with the end of her sleeve, thinking, _Now, do it now -_

He was digging in the pocket of his sport coat and unwrapping a napkin bundle. "Want a cookie? They're pretty yummy."

It was a stash of her cookies. She smiled. "Sure."

He handed her a circle that she'd decorated with red and white zig zags and candy pearls and picked a dapper gingerbread man for himself. "Figured nobody would notice if I squirreled away two or six or twelve," he said, biting off an arm. "That was a lot of cookies you brought."

"Mmmmhm."

"And you said you had like three dozen more at home."

"Yep."

"And you said you baked for stress relief."

She looked up at him. 

He cocked his head. "You're pretty stressed out right now, aren't you?"

She nodded, looking down at her drink. "MCATs in January."

"Hey," he said, nudging her. "Hey, you're going to do great."

Her eyes burned with tears for a moment. "I don't know about that."

"Caitlin, you were literally our valedictorian. You're going to knock that test out of the park."

She took a shaky breath and thought about making up an excuse to go back upstairs. A new drink, or her mother calling for her or -

Instead, she said, "I already took the MCATs."

"You did? And, what, you decided you wanted an even better score? See, that's just like you, that - "

"No, I failed."

He frowned. "You - what?"

"I failed." She wiped at her eyes. "I mean, I didn't fail because there's not exactly a passing score, but the average is 500 and most schools want at least 504."

"What was your score?" he said gently.

"502," she said. 

"I bet there's still schools who'll take that - "

She made an impatient gesture. "That kind of score might get me into some crappy med school where they send frat boys who get in on their daddy's money. I don't want that. I want a  _ good _ school. I need to make at least 510 next time. 520 would be better."

"What's a perfect score?"

"528."

"You're being a little hard on yourself there," he said.

She shook her head hard. "They look at both scores. Every score from every time you take the test. I need to do really well to balance out the first time."

"Is that seriously the only thing they look at? Two little numbers, after all your years of school and extracurriculars and being generally awesome?"

"No," she mumbled. "But it's the biggest one."

He put his arm around her shoulders. "Hey," he said. "Hey. I've known you since we were three years old. You always wanted to be a doctor. You dressed up as a doctor four different Halloweens. You put it in all your admissions essays and your valedictorian speech. You're gonna do this."

She rested against him, and listened to the creak of footsteps overhead, the muffled laughter and music trickling down the stairwell. It reminded her of countless prior parties, the two of them slouched on this couch, bickering over which DVD to play next or the last slice of pizza.

He gave her arm a quick, comforting rub. "So. What happened the first time?"

"Who says anything happened?'

He said, "Please," in a way that meant,  _ I've known you for almost twenty years and never known you to blow a test, especially a test as big and important as this. _

She sighed. "There was - I just - I -" She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. "I had a boyfriend."

He blinked. After a moment, he said, "Oh - kay?"

"And we broke up."

He looked immediately thunderous. "Did he seriously dump you right before the MCATs?"

"No, no, no, it wasn't like that - I mean, we did break up, and it was right before the MCATs, but - " She rubbed her face. "He graduated when I did and he got a job right away. A great job. His dream job."

"Lucky him."

"It was in Coast City."

His mouth rounded. "Ohhhhhh."

She nodded. "And we talked it over, a lot, and we decided that neither of us could do a long-distance relationship on top of everything else, and we decided to break up. Except that - " She swallowed a lump in her throat. "I couldn't let him go that easily. We meant to break up at the beginning of the summer so I could focus and he could move. But his job didn't start until August, so we just - we kept putting it off. And I told myself that it was fine, I would study after we broke up, but while we were together I wanted to be  _ together, _ you know?"

"Yeah," he said. "So when did he move?"

She sniffed. "Six days before I sat for the MCATs."

He hugged her close. "And you were wrecked."

She nodded against his shoulder. "Even more than I expected."

He kissed her forehead. "So you tried to study and you cried and you ate ice cream and then you told yourself you should be studying and you cried some more and you didn't sleep, and rinse and repeat."

"How did you know?'

He scoffed a little. "We've been over this. I  _ know _ you. So that all happened and you dragged yourself into the MCATs like death warmed over and you still scored two points over average?"

"It's not enough," she said. "I told you."

"It means that the next time you sit down in front of that test booklet you're going to hit it like the fist of God."

She shook her head. "It's sweet that you believe in me but - "

"Hey, no, I'm not being  _ sweet _ right now. I believe in you, period the end. I know you're not used to crashing and burning. You're probably self-doubting up a storm. But you're studying, you're focused, you're gonna do this, and I'm going to provide the champagne when you get into Harvard or Stanford or - "

"I want Johns Hopkins," she said.

"Then you're going to get Johns Hopkins."

His staunch, unblinking confidence in her warmed her from her toes upward. She dropped her head back against the back of the sofa and smiled at him. "I've missed you," she said.

He smiled back. "Ditto."

She took a shaky breath and let the words spill out. "I'm sorry about senior prom."

He looked at her silently for a moment, the smile fading off his face. "What  _ happened?" _

She shook her head. "Just this dumb high school thing. I overreacted."

"Was it me? Was my fault?"

"No!" She put her hand on his arm, squeezing reassuringly. "It didn't - " _Have anything to do with you,_ she was going to say, but that wasn't true. It had everything to do with him. "It wasn't anything you did, I promise."

His shoulders relaxed. "Okay, but what - "

"I'm sorry I ran out on you, but things worked out okay," she said brightly. "You spent the evening hanging out with Kamilla Hwang, and look what happened from there."

"Uh. Yeah."

"I didn't know her that well in school but she always seemed nice," she powered on. "You seem like you're happy with her, too. So. Things happen for a reason, right?"

He looked at her with his brows drawn together. "I . . . guess?"

The door at the top of the stairs opened and a heavy tread creaked on the stairs. Caitlin suddenly realized how close they were, practically hugging, and scooted away. Cisco's arm slid off her shoulders and fell heavily on the cushion between them.

Dante paused at the bottom of the stairs, lowering a beer bottle from his lips. His eyes flicked in between the two of them. "Why are you two hiding away down here? You shouldn't let Cisco monopolize you, Caitlin."

"I'm fine," she said. "I don't feel monopolized. We were just talking. Catching up."

"Cool." He settled on the patched arm of the sofa next to her, smiling brightly. "I'd like to catch up, too."

"Actually," she said, getting to her feet, "I think I'm going to get another drink." 

"Cisco can get that for you." He waved his bottle at his brother. "Hey, Cisco, go get her a refill, would you?"

"No, I can get it myself, it's fine." She smoothed her skirt. "I'll, um, I guess I'll see you upstairs."

Dante smiled lazily at her and took another drink. "Count on it."

He wasn't who she'd been saying it to, but she let it pass and headed for the stairwell. 

Her heel caught on the edge of the top stair, and she grabbed the banister in alarm. When she was steady again, she paused to work her foot back into her shoe, which had almost fallen off.

She became aware of a hissed, angry conversation going on in the basement.

"What are you doing?" Cisco was saying in a murderous tone.

"Jealous?"

"Shut up. She's got a lot on her mind right now. She doesn't need you drooling on her."

"What is she, your property?"

"I'm not saying that, I'm just - can you not?"

"You know what, hermanito, the last time you asked me to back off, I did. But then not only did you totally fail to seal the deal, you started dating what's-her-face two months later. You had your chance, mijo. Let someone else have a shot."

Cisco made a noise. "You're disgusting. You've known her since we were kids."

"So have you, and she's not a kid anymore. If she's so busy and stressed, maybe she needs someone to take her out and - what? Where are you going? Mad?" He laughed.

Cisco said very evenly, "I don't think Mama would like it if I punched you in the nose right now, so I'm leaving before I do." 

Caitlin caught her breath and scrambled up the last two stairs, slipping through the door as quietly as possible and bolting for the next room over. 

She ran into her mom, who said, "Where did you disappear to?"

She shrugged and smiled bravely through a few conversations. She only caught about half of what anyone was saying, her mind stuck on what she'd overheard.

What had Dante meant,  _ the last time? _

Had he meant their senior year?

That year had been dotted with moments where she would suddenly notice something about Cisco that seemed completely new. How broad his shoulders were. The way his hands looked when he was carefully putting something together. The fullness of his lower lip. The way her heart skipped a beat when he turned the full force of his smile on her. 

Sometimes, she'd thought he was noticing her too. She would look up and his eyes would be resting on her, dark and warm. Or his hand would linger against hers. Or there would be a humming moment that shivered between them like a plucked guitar string.

Even though it had been a silly deal they'd made when they were fourteen, going to the prom together had felt perfect, like fate. How much more romantic could you get than to admit your feelings and kiss each other for the first time in your finest clothes, at a night you'd remember for the rest of your life?

But it hadn't worked out that way at all, and afterwards, she'd told herself she'd been imagining any indications of attraction she'd ever seen from him. 

What if she hadn't?

"Caitlin!"

She looked up. "Sorry?"

Her mother shook her head at her. "Did you drink some of Tino's eggnog? You're very spacey tonight."

"No, I'm fine. Just - just thinking about the test. The MCATs."

"Oh, honey, you should take a break!" said Mr. Colson. "You'll wear yourself out stressing about that test. I'm sure you'll do just fine."

"Caitlin's always been very focused," her mom said. "That's what made her such a good student."

"Make time for fun, too," said Mrs. Colson. "Or you'll have a breakdown, just like my cousin Janet. Did I ever tell you about my cousin Janet?"

Only about a million times, but Caitlin let her ramble on because she just had to smile and nod and look surprised at key moments. 

If Cisco had been as attracted to her during senior year as she had been to him, then she'd screwed up everything even more than she thought by running away like a silly child. 

And what did it matter if he had? What did that mean now? Now that he was with Kamilla. Had been with Kamilla almost since the night of senior prom.

The girl she'd been and the woman she was becoming insisted: It mattered, it matters, it will matter.

Once the tale of Janet had wound to its unlikely close, Caitlin made up a sudden and irresistible desire for more tiny cheese cubes and headed for the dining room. 

Mrs. Ramon was just outside the entrance, chatting with another neighbor. "Oh, no, she's not here tonight. She had to work. But she's such a nice girl. I'm so happy they're together. You know they've known each other since high school?"

"Now, how serious are they?" Mrs. Haight asked. "Are you going to get a daughter-in-law?"

"Well, I haven't heard anything but - " She smiled brightly, her eyes conspiratorial.

Caitlin swallowed hard and said, "Excuse me," as she edged past them.

Mrs. Ramon's face lit up as she spotted her. "Oh, Caitlin, I wanted to tell you! People just love your cookies."

"We do," Mrs. Haight contributed. "They're just adorable. You made them yourself? You know, if the medical-school thing doesn't work out, you can always open your own little cookie business."

"I'll keep that in mind," Caitlin said. "I was happy to bring them. It was my pleasure, really."

Mrs. Ramon patted her arm. "They're all gone already!" She gazed upon her picked-over table with satisfaction. "I'll have to open up the second can of nuts, and more chocolates, and more wine . . . "

"I've actually got more cookies at home," Caitlin offered impulsively. "I can go get them and come right back."

"Oh, sweetheart, no, it's so cold -"

"I really don't mind, and it's not that far. And you'd be doing my mom and me a favor, because otherwise we'll be eating them until February," she added. 

Mrs. Ramon glanced at her table and wavered. "People do like them. I've been hearing compliments all evening. They wanted to know where I bought them." She beamed at Caitlin. 

Caitlin smiled back. "I'll be right back, okay?"

"Don't forget your coat!" she called after her.

Caitlin took the quiet moment on the stairs together head together. Okay, fine, she'd go back to her house and get the cookies,and then she would find Cisco and just  _ ask. _ Maybe not about senior year . . . but definitely about Kamilla. About whether they were going to get married.

(And then she would know where she stood, if she stood anywhere at all with him.)

When she came back down the stairs, buttoning her coat, she found Cisco in the foyer, staring up at her with his arms crossed. "Running away?" he said without preamble.

"I'm getting more cookies," she said. "I'll be back."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I don't believe you."

"I am coming back," she insisted, coming down the rest of the stairs. "And I want to talk to you when I do."

"I'll go with you," he said, grabbing his own coat out of the hall closet. "We can talk on the way."

"You don't have to do that."

"Kinda think I do. We keep getting interrupted. Let's go." He grabbed her hand, and it felt so warm and strong and familiar around hers that she wanted to cry.

"Slow down," she said, stumbling over the threshold after him. "I'm wearing heels."

He dropped her hand. "Sorry." 

She took the front steps carefully, and he waited until she stood on the front walk with him to start walking again, more slowly. They'd hit the edge of the property and she thought, _Might as well._

"Are you going to - "

"Why do you - " he said at the same time.

They both stopped.

"Sorry," he said. "You go."

"You can."

"Just go," he said with a sigh. 

She huffed out her breath and watched it stream through the air. "Are you going to ask Kamilla to marry you?"

"Am I  _ what?" _ he almost yelled.

"Are you," she said slowly, through her teeth. "Going to. Propose. To. Kamilla."

"Yeah, that's what I thought you said." He squinted at her. "Considering we broke up nearly a year ago - no. I'm not."

It was her turn to yelp, "You what?"

"Come on! You know we did. You left a little sad-face reaction on my relationship change last year."

"But didn't you get back together?"

"Uh . . . no?"

"But - " She shook her head. "Your dad was hinting about the next generation - "

"He's been saying that since Dante turned twenty-one. And weren't you the one complaining how everyone was asking you when you were gonna have babies?"

"And your mom was talking about someone that she really liked . . . that you knew in high school . . . she had to work tonight and she couldn't come."

"Did she say my name?"

"No."

He rolled his eyes. "Then she was talking about Dante’s latest," he said. "You remember Melinda Torres?"

"You had a crush on her," she said automatically. "Sophomore year."

"Oh yeah, I did, didn’t I? Anyway, they've gone out, off and on, since the spring. My mama being my mama, she's all like, oh a nice Mexican girl, grandbabies soon! But he's not serious about her. Or anyone. He was trying to hit on you all evening."

"Yeah," she said softly, feeling like an idiot. All those conclusions she'd leapt to. Clearly she wasn't any better at twenty-two than she had been at eighteen. She thought of something. "But the Christmas picture."

"What? Where?"

"On the stairs. Kamilla was in it."

He frowned at her, then his face cleared. "That was last year's picture. We didn't take one this year."

"Last year's?"

"Yep."

She felt her mouth hang open a little. "Your mom left it up? Even after you broke up?"

"You know how she is about the Christmas picture. It's, like, sacred."

But Mrs. Ramon's father had died in November. "Losing your grandfather really hit her, didn't it?"

He nodded.

"I'm sorry," she said, taking his hand in hers. "I know you were close to him."

He squeezed it. "He's not in pain anymore," he said. "That's what I tell myself." He wiped his eyes. 

"I wish I could have come to the funeral."

He bumped her shoulder with his. "Doof, it was in Albuquerque."

She bumped him back. "I know that. I still wish I could have come."

"I got your DM. It was nice. Sorry I didn't answer."

"I understood."

They kept walking, closer than before. He was warm and solid next to her and even though the wind had kicked up, she didn't feel chilled. 

"You know what's weird," he said after a moment. 

"What?"

"That Christmas picture was like the beginning of the end for me and Kamilla."

She turned her head to study his profile. "In what way?"

He shrugged. "I'm still not totally sure."

"Was it your idea?"

"It was my mama's, but we were both like, hey, sure, that sounds good!" He shook his head. "We'd been together for three years. We were talking about moving in. So . . . seems like we were serious, right?"

She nodded.

"Right, so including her in the family Christmas picture was like, duh, of course." He sighed. "So we got the ugly matching sweaters and we laughed about them and we turned up at the portrait studio on time and it was all sort of a joke."

"So what happened?"

"First, you gotta know. We were never one of those couples that fought all the time. Our friends even called us No-Drama Cismilla at school. But the night after we got that picture taken, we had this  _ blowout _ of a fight. I don't even remember what it was about. And then we kept fighting. Little things, big things, just everything, for weeks. I couldn't understand it and I don't think she could either, but it was like we couldn't even see each others' faces without getting mad." 

"So you talked, and you -"

He sighed. "I wish I'd been that good about it. We were having dinner, trying to be chill, easy-going, no-drama again, you know? Doing our best not to fight."

"Right."

"So I got this text from my mom, and she did, too. It was a copy of the picture from the photographer." He shook his head. "I should have been happy, seeing her there in the middle of my family like we belonged together."

"You weren't."

"I didn't know what I was, but it wasn't happy. Then I looked up. She'd seen my expression and she was just staring at me. It was like a grenade had landed in the middle of the spaghetti. I couldn't speak. I could barely breathe. Then she said, 'Do you even want to be with me anymore?'"

"What did you say?"

He grimaced. "'Oh, babe, of course I do. Sure I do!' And I played loving boyfriend all night, like a piece of shit."

"Cisco!"

"I was freaked out! And I didn't fool her. She always knew when I wasn't being honest." He sighed. "The fighting stopped after that, but only because she flat-out wasn't talking to me. The day after finals were over, she texted me,  _ I think we should break up." _

"Ouch."

"Yeah. I sat there and looked at that text for three or four hours. Trying to feel anything other than  _ yeah, probably." _ He sighed. "Finally I just texted back,  _ okay.  _ She came and got her stuff while I was out, left her key on the table, and we were over." He sighed again. "No-Drama Cismilla, even when it ended."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too. We were good together for awhile. I loved her, I guess.”

Caitlin, who'd been present for every time he'd ever madly fallen in love and never once heard an  _ I guess, _ looked at him with her brows raised. 

He caught her eye and said, "I know how that sounds. But I did."

"Of course you did. You've never been the kind of person to stay with someone you didn't care about."

"But . . . " he prompted.

"But I don't think it was enough," she said gently. "Not enough for a Christmas picture with your family. Not enough for whatever that implies, to them or to you."

He reached out and pulled a leaf off the hedge in front of her house. They were standing just inside the edge of the front lawn, blocked from the wind. 

He tore the leaf to shreds, his face tight and pensive. "We were good together," he said. "We didn't fight, like I said. We didn't cheat on each other, we didn't play games. I saw so many relationships that seemed to be based on making each other miserable." He picked another leaf off the hedge. "That whole last year, I kept telling myself,  _ Hey, at least that's not us." _

"Cisco," she said. "Being not-miserable together isn't the same thing as being happy. "

He crumbled the shreds of leaf into powder between his fingers. 

She wondered if she'd stepped in it. What did she know? It had been years since they'd been friends.

"Where've you been all this time?" he said, throwing the shreds to the ground.

She shook her head, smiling at him. "School," she said. "Same as you."

He hugged his elbows and looked at her beseechingly. "Do you think I led her on, or whatever? I didn't mean to."

"I can't answer that," she said. "I don't know her, and I never saw you together. Come on," she added gently. "Let's go inside."

He followed her up the front walk. "That month we were fighting so much, she told me that I didn't even know her anymore, and it's true. We were together for three years and by the end of it, she could have been an interdimensional assassin for all I knew."

"There must have been something you saw in her," she said, stepping into the warmth of her house and hitting the lights. "When you first got together."

He shut the door behind them. "Oh, for sure! She was nice and smart and creative . . . she's a photographer, you know?"

"I've seen your Insta," she said. "Before and after you were together. I know." Which should have been a clue that they weren't together again. The difference had been marked, and it hadn't changed back lately.

"Okay, smartass," he said. "But the real reason I started hanging out with her so much in the first place was because she wanted me. And right then, it felt nice to be wanted. It felt really, really fucking nice."

She dropped her keys on the hall table. The crash was deafening in her ears.

She couldn't pretend not to know what he was talking about.

She tried to marshal words but he was the one who looked away. "Sorry," he said. "That was . . . " He rubbed his hand over his face. "Thought I was over that.”

“You’re talking about prom, right?”

“I'm sorry I brought it up. I'm really not bitter about it. It's okay. You didn't want - "

She grabbed his arm and forgot about getting the words in the precise, perfect order. "I wanted you."

He dropped his hand. "Huh?"

"I wanted you," she said. "At prom. I was so excited to go with you. I was hoping we'd - " She felt herself blush but powered through. "That we'd get together. There. At prom."

His mouth fell open. 

"I went looking for a dress like I'd gone looking for colleges. It had to be perfect."

"It was," he said, looking baffled. "You looked like a princess. But - you left, Caitlin. You took off, you - " He stared at her. "You wanted me. You - you wanted to be my girlfriend? For me to be your boyfriend?"

She nodded.

"What happened? Why did you run?"

She swallowed. "When I was in the bathroom, I heard Lisa Snart talking to her friends about our deal. And she was - "

"Oh," he said. "Oh, no."

She nodded and turned away to go to the kitchen. She could tell this story or she could look at him, not both. "She was laughing at me. Saying what a loser I was, that I had to make you take me to the prom. That you'd taken pity on me."

"Oh shit," he breathed, following her down the hall. "I didn't tell her. I swear I didn't."

"I know you didn't," she said, opening the pantry and getting out the giant tupperware container of cookies. "You wouldn't. Not to her."

"I definitely told some of my other friends. Bragged, more like. I'd had you locked down for prom since we were fourteen. That shit's adorable." He looked wretched. 

She set the cookies down on the island. "Cisco, please don't blame yourself. I told some people too. It probably just got back to her the way things got around in high school, and she decided to be awful about it."

She could still remember the horrible cold twisting feeling of humiliation as she sat on the toilet, clutching the pretty skirt of her prom dress and listening to Lisa giggle with her friends.

_ "Can you believe what a reject she is? Cisco's too nice. He could have asked anyone he wanted but he took pity on her because she clearly didn't have a chance in hell of getting any other guy to take her. Like, who actually goes through with a deal like that? She's such a prude she probably won't even put out tonight. Poor guy. Think I should go offer him a blow job to make up for it?" _

She swallowed hard. "That's why I was upset when I came back out of the bathroom."

"That  _ bitch,"  _ he said. "But you didn't believe her, did you?" He took her shoulders. "Look, she never liked you. I dumped her sophomore year because she wouldn't stop talking shit about you."

When she didn't answer, he said,  _ "Caitlin." _

"I - " She looked away. "I wasn't popular in high school. Not like you were. But I was excited that night. Happy and hopeful and . . . but hearing that just hit all my insecurities all at once."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because that would have meant admitting that I wanted us to be more than friends." She rubbed her temples. "I know. I know. But in that moment that was the most horrifying thing I could think of." 

"Except that if you had, I would have told you I wanted to be more than friends too."

She caught her breath. At the time, her own insecurity had only allowed her to picture Cisco letting her down easy, trying to be kind. After overhearing Lisa and her friends, her hopes for this exact thing - this right here - had been blown to pieces. "You did?"

"More than anything. But you left. I didn't know what had happened, but I did know that you didn't want to be there, with me. So I got mad and said,  _ fine, if that's the way it's gonna be _ and threw myself into having the best damn prom ever." He grimaced. "I should have called you. If I'd called you, would you have picked up?"

"Yes," she whispered.

He gave a little groan.

"Believe me, I regretted leaving before I got home. But I couldn't imagine going back. I thought I would just talk to you about it the next day."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because every prom picture online had you and Kamilla somewhere, dancing, looking all happy. And then you were always with her at school after that. Smiling at her. Joking with her. Eating lunch together . . . ignoring me."

"Trying to make you jealous," Cisco said.

When she looked at him, he added, "Obviously, that backfired."

She crossed her arms. "Is that why you started dating her?"

"Give both of us some credit." Now he looked away, poking through the tupperware, picking out a little iced gingerbread house cookie. "Yeah, I flirted with her and hung out with her a bunch, but we didn't have our first date until July."

"What happened in July?'

"You'd already left for your summer honors program," he said. "We weren't talking anymore. I realized that I was hanging on to something that wasn't going to happen, and I was missing out on something that could be good. Someone." His shoulders lifted and fell in what might have been a shrug and might have been a sigh. "So I . . . let go. Moved on."

She leaned against the island, studying him as he bit into his chosen cookie. She'd let go, too, eventually. She'd made new friends at college, learned how to flirt and date and trust in her own value and appeal. But the might-have-been had always been a sad little knot in the back of her head.

As all the different facets of their prom night disaster settled in, she felt that knot gently loosen. She would always regret that she'd hurt him, and that he'd hurt her, and that they'd both been too proud and stubborn to reach out to each other in any substantial way. But at least the questions were answered.

She picked out a cookie for herself. "Maybe it's a good thing we didn't get together back then," she said, biting off the snowman's hat. "We've both done a lot of growing up over the past few years, it sounds like."

"Yeah," he said, bumping his cookie against hers in a kind of pastry toast. "Kind of wish we'd gotten that dance, though."

She studied him, chewing her cookie. (They were very good cookies. Good choice, using the almond extract.) Then she swallowed, and for the first time all night, said exactly what she wanted to say without overthinking it. "No time like the present."

He looked up quickly. "Right now?"

She shrugged, smiling at him. "I've got my phone. And Spotify."

"Wait," he said, pulling his own phone out. "Hang on, I've got the perfect song." He pulled up the app and hit play, looking up with a big grin.

She cocked her head, listening. It was a song that had been popular their senior year. There wasn't anything particularly romantic or special about the lyrics. Just your standard pop ballad, featuring boys who were better at soulful looks than harmony. "What's this?"

He came around the island and put his hands on her waist. She settled hers on his shoulders in the time-honored slow-dance position.

"Your favorite song," he said, swaying to the beat. "At least it was then. At prom, when you went to the bathroom, I went running over to the DJ to ask if he'd queue it up next. I had to give him twenty bucks."

"Really? You did that for me?"

"Oh, I had it all planned out. We were gonna dance, and I'd stare into your eyes, and the lights would be all like soft and glimmery, you know?" They swayed gently, shoes shuffling across the linoleum.

"Like every prom in every TV show ever?"

"Got it it in one. It was going to be romantic as fuck."

And then she'd sat there saying she didn't want to dance. She could only imagine how let down he must have been. It made his insistence on one dance - _Just once, that's all I'm asking!_ \- more understandable.

"Cisco," she said.

"Yeah?"

"That would have been very romantic if this actually was my favorite song."

He goggled at her. "Wait, what? What are you talking about? Of course it was."

"No, it wasn't."

He shook his head, confused. "You wanted me to play it on the guitar all the time!"

"I just liked seeing you play your guitar! I don't know why you always picked that song."

"Well, that was the one I knew the best because I heard you humming it and I learned it." He eyed her. "Wait, you liked seeing me play?"

"I'm sure I'm not the first person you ever seduced with your guitar."

"Yeah, but I didn't know it worked on you." He tilted his head. "It worked on you?"

"It really worked on me. Do you still play?'

"Sometimes." He gave her a slow smile that made her insides go soft and melty. "I can play for you sometime soon, if you want."

"I'd like that."

The song crooned to its end, and silence took its place. She let her fingers comb through the soft ends of his hair. "So - what were you going to do then?"

"After the song?"

She nodded.

"I figured we could sneak into the hall or something. Somewhere private. Where I could finally tell you how I felt."

"What would you have said?"

His mouth crooked up. "Something like - Caitlin, we've been friends our whole lives, but to tell the truth, I'm starting to get, like, romantic feelings about you. And I wanna know if you'll be my girlfriend, because I think that would be awesome."

She burst into giggles.

He laughed too, running a hand through his hair. "Come on, I was eighteen! I'm way more suave now."

"It's fine," she said through her laughter. "It's perfect. It would have worked." 

"Yeah?"

She met his eyes. "It is working." She took a quick step into him and pressed her mouth to his.

His arms tightened around her, pulling her into his body.  _ Oh, _ she thought, because it was definitely a man's body now, solid and strong and warm against her. She hummed pleasure against his mouth and felt him smile.

After a long time, they eased apart, just long enough to breathe. "Well," he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. "That was worth the wait."

Flushed with happiness and heat, she gave him a smile. "Are you willing to wait four more years for the next one?"

"Mmmm, nope," he said. "You?"

"No."

* * *

They ended up on the couch in the next room, making out like the horny teenagers they might have been. Cisco definitely didn't kiss like an uncertain teenager, though. 

Cuddled up against him, her legs stretched across his lap and his face resting against her neck, Caitlin sighed with contentment. 

He traced patterns on her knee. "I can't believe we waited this long and all it took was one party and one dance."

"And one actual conversation," she pointed out.

"That too," he agreed.

She ran her finger around the buttons on his shirt. "Are you sure about this?"

He tipped his head back to look at her. "About us, you mean?"

"Not us, exactly. But the timing. I'm studying for the MCATs and then I'll be going somewhere for med school - "

"Baltimore," he said. "We agreed, right, that you're getting into Johns Hopkins?"

She smiled. "Baltimore," she said. "But that's my point, I'll be leaving. Are you sure?"

He wove his fingers through hers. "Look," he said. "I get what you're saying, I do. Things are going to be nuts for me too. I'm heading into my last semester, trying to make it to graduation. I've got an internship lined up, gonna be looking for jobs . . . it's like all this adult shit hitting at once. But we choked once before, and then life pulled us apart. I want to take this second chance."

"Me too," she said.

He smiled. "Not like life might not do that again, because life's a bitch. But let's start where we are, and take each step as it comes, and when life happens - "

"We'll figure it out?"

He shrugged. "The only thing to do, right?"

She cupped his face in hers. "I really have missed you," she said. 

He kissed her palm. "Me too."

They kissed a few more times before Caitlin became aware of a buzzing sound. She lifted her head. "What is that?"

"Your phone?" he suggested, pointing at the coffee table where she'd left it after playing him her actual favorite song.

"Oh!" She picked it up, grimaced when she saw the caller ID, and answered. "Hi, Mom."

"Caitlin," her mom said. "Where are you?"

"Just grabbing the rest of the cookies. Mrs. Ramon ran out and I - "

"Yes, I know, she told me, but that was forty-five minutes ago," her mom said. "It's very rude to try and sneak out of the party. You barely stayed an hour."

Cisco started snickering, burying his face in her neck again. She elbowed him. "Mom, I wasn't trying to sneak out of the party. I really did come home for the cookies. I just got, um - " He kissed her shoulder, and his hair tickled her neck. "Distracted."

Her mom's voice got a little distant, as if she'd turned away from the phone for a moment. "What? Who? . . . Oh." When she came back on the line, she sounded a lot less annoyed. "Well, bring them back then, people are asking."

"Okay, Mom. I'll be right there." She got to her feet, tugging her dress straight.

Cisco sighed and mouthed,  _ Really? _

"And Caitlin?" her mother said.

"Mmm?" She took Cisco's hand and pulled him to his feet, mouthing  _ Yes, really _ .

"Tell Cisco he should come back too."

* * *

_ One year later _

"No cookies this year?" Mrs. Haight asked over the buffet table.

"We just got in from Baltimore," Caitlin said, filling her plate. "My last final was Thursday. I didn't really have time for cookies this month."

"She slept most of the day Friday and all through the flight this morning," Cisco said, putting his arm around her. "I seriously thought about holding a mirror up to see if she was still breathing."

She grinned at him. "Thanks, sweetie. I woke up for the party, though, right?"

"Like you'd miss it." He kissed her cheek and stole a cookie off her plate.

Mrs. Haight beamed at them. "Well, it's good to see you two anyway. And how is med school, Caitlin? You want to be a pediatrician, right?"

"Nope, still research," she said brightly. "It's good. A lot of work, but good."

"And your new job, Cisco?"

"I like it," he said. "I interned with PalmerTech last spring and I just lucked out enormously that their Baltimore office was looking to expand."

She smiled at them both. "You're very lucky, Caitlin. A lot of men wouldn't follow their girlfriend across the country."

Caitlin didn't point out that if the positions had been reversed, she would have been expected to follow Cisco, and not congratulated half so effusively if she did. She just leaned into him and said, "Believe me, I know how lucky I am."

"Both of us," Cisco said.

"And what are your plans for the future?" she asked, not-very-subtly looking at Caitlin's left hand. "Your mothers would love to be grandmothers soon."

She could practically feel Cisco suppress a groan. Thirty - "or later" he would add - was still their boundary for starting a family. 

"There's a lot we both have to do first," she said. "We're taking the future as it comes."

FINIS


End file.
